Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stains Review & Swatches

Hey fellow lipstick maniacs, the lippie reviews are back!

 Crush, Adore, Romantic

I'm going to be reviewing the Revlon Kissable Balm Stains. Now I actually tried 2 of the colors when they just came out, ended up hating them, and returned them.
After starting school again I realized that as much as I loved my Revlon lip butters, they wore off pretty quickly. I started looking for something long wearing. The problem is I have very dry lips and a lot of stains and long wearing lipsticks make my lips look horribly flaky. Since I hated the colors I got of the Revlon Kissable Balm Stains, not the formula, I decided to try out some of the deeper fall colors. I'm glad I did as these are now my new love; I even broke up with my Revlon lip butters for these!
Now I'm sure you all read about these a million times, so I'm going give a very short summary; they are supposed to go on like a moisturizing balm, give color, and stain the lips after a couple hours. 

The Pros:
1) They go on like a lip balm and are comfortable on the lips.
2) They have a refreshing minty feel and taste that's not too strong.
3) They have a glossy finish once applied. Not glossy like a lip gloss, but a healthy look. The shine remains for around 3 hours.
4)After the shine goes away, the product sets into the lips and leaves a stain. The stain doesn't transfer and is still there after drinking and eating.
5)  The stain is not patchy, it wears off evenly.
6) The darker colors are not like marker lipstains; they go on sheer at first but can be built to full color.
7) The product rolls up so it doesn't need to be sharpened.

The Cons:
1) They are around $9-$10 which is pretty expensive, especially because there is not much product. The balm stain goes down to less the halfway of the tube.
2) The color of the tube is not always true to the actual color.
3) My lips have medium pigmentation and the lighter colors didn't show up :(.
4) It does slightly settle into lip lines. I can't see it from afar but I can up close.
5) There are 12 shades, but some of the shades are very redundant (more on that later).

Onto the Colors:

 Crush, Adore, Romantic

Romantic is a bright orangey red. It's great for both summer and fall. I thought this would be the same color as the Revlon lip butter in Candy Apple but Romantic is lighter and more orange while Candy Apple is deeper and more of a tomato red.

Adore look like a dark vampy red in the tube but it's actually a wearable, sheer brown toned red. It has subtle gold shimmers. I think it would look very natural on warm skintones.This one is the most wearable out of the 3 I got.

 Crush is a dark reddish-purple berry color on the lips.

 Romantic, Adore, Crush

Now onto the 2 colors I returned and why:
Darling: I was really excited for this shade but it would not show up on me! I literally had to layer around 20 times (not exaggerating) to notice a sheer wash of cool pink on my lips. It was ridiculous. I wish the lighter colors were more pigmented because they are so pretty.

 Smitten Swatch

Smitten: I thought this would be a nice berry color from looking at the tube, but
boy was I wrong! It came out as a bold dark blue based fuscia that reminded me a lot of the Revlon lip butter in Raspberry Pie. Although, Smitten was very pigmented and stained well I returned it because fuscias look horrendous on my skin tone.

Here is why I think a lot of the colors are redundant; Darling looks a lot like Cherish, and Smitten is the third fusica color next to Sweetheart and Lovesick. There are just a lot of cool toned pinks that seem very similar to me. I wish they included some more original shades in the collection.

Although the Revlon Kissable Balm Stain line does have a few setbacks, the formula is a definite win for me. I'm so excited to find a product that does not dry out my lips and lasts a long time. I love how I can wear very dark or bold colors without it feeling heavy or worrying about it transferring. If you want a great lip color without the fuss, be sure to check these out!

 Romantic, Adore Crush. I like how they look like magnets to the paper :)